Magic Johnson is among the handful of athletes who turned their fame into a 10-figure fortune. While his NBA career was cut short after an HIV diagnosis, his business acumen and incredible investment portfolio helped him amass a net worth reportedly north of $1.2 billion. However, Johnson did not become business savvy overnight after retirement. The Los Angeles Lakers icon invested money from his first NBA contract into a radio station.
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In an interview on The Breakfast Club, Johnson told the story of his maiden business venture after the Lakers drafted him first overall in the 1979 NBA draft,
“When I finally got my first NBA contract, the first thing I bought was a radio station… I had bought an AM station in Denver, Colorado. I asked all my teammates to join in. It was only gonna cost us $1.5 million. So we all put in a couple of hundred thousand, we could have this radio station. [But] none of the players invested with me. So I bought it myself.”
With his teammates refusing to chip in, Johnson sold a 20-acre property to raise the capital to buy the radio station. He turned the station from AM to FM, which proved to be a masterstroke as its valuation soared. It rose high enough for his teammates to regret not taking up their point guard on the offer as three years later he sold the radio station for $4 million, more than doubling his $1.5 million investment. They each could’ve made over $200,000 in profit but their reluctance saw Johnson take home the entire $2.5 million profit.
Time is money for Magic Johnson
In the late 1970s, Magic Johnson was spending his time and money trying to convince his teammates to join him in a business venture worth $1.5 million. Fast forward to 2023, the Lakers icon was part of the ownership group that paid a record-shattering $6.05 billion to acquire the NFL’s Washington Commanders.
Johnson’s business philosophy has always been about learning and leveling up with time. In a chat with Maverick Carter, he discussed it in depth and said,
“Everybody gets mad now when you and I say no. And I got to teach everybody. When I was at a [low level], I could deal with you. But I’m not at that level no more… The deal’s got to [massive for me to be interested]. I’m not hating. Everybody gonna be mad at me when I say no. But the deal’s gotta be [massive]. You can learn a lot from billionaires. They say the same amount of time that takes to make a million dollars is the same amount of time it takes to make a $100 million… Time is the key.”
Johnson has proven that he follows the principle that he’s talking about. From cracking a $1.5 million deal with his rookie contract to being part of a conglomerate shelling $6.05 billion for an NFL franchise, the Lakers icon has leveled up to the top of the business food chain and if the deals coming his way aren’t in that stratosphere, he isn’t interested.
